Andy's Glasses

In the ‘old days’ when Spurs played in grey, Arsenal in grey, Chelsea in a slightly different grey and Newcastle in black’n’white, football managers bossed the clubs. They also wore long, grey overcoats and grey hats. Underneath were suits and ties. All grey. Always. We watched them on tv. They were called ‘the Boss’ or ‘the Guv’nor’.

But they had power. And more importantly they had respect. Of the players, of the owners, of the fans. In fact the owners were generally families who’d owned the clubs for generations. They install a manager and it was a job with tenure. Bill Nicholson, Bob Paisley, Matt Busby, Bertie Mee, Don Revie, Brian Clough (though he moved clubs) were given clubs to manage and that’s what they did. Win or lose. Survive or get relegated. It was their sole responsibility.

Then came The Premiership. Then came money. Then came Sky. The devil’s (that’d be Rupert Murdoch, then) own quest for national, if not world, dominance.

It was a seed change. It was a revolution. The cash just flooded into the game. Players went from earning merely ridiculous wages to entering the film-star region of the super-rich. Football clubs became trinkets for the insanely wealthy to buy as a new hobby. You’re an oil sheikh with untold billions and not much to do with your life? Buy Manchester City. You’re a Russian Oligarch looking to launder some money and raise your profile high enough that Russian hit-squads can’t hit it? Buy Chelsea. You’re an American Sports Franchise serial addict; by Manchester United. Its easy.

Thus the manager, once esteemed, untouchable, revered, now faced a growing dilemma. The players, buoyed by their new wealth, became more difficult to deal with. They didn’t just do what the manager said; they questioned. Even though they were, in the most part, inexperienced and educationally sub-normal. The owners were not just there to perpetuate an institution and keep it an essential part of a local community. Now they wanted ‘success’ because that was where the riches lie. Even though they were seriously fucking rich to start with. But not content with owning a football club!!! they now wanted to ‘win the Champions League’ as the latest measure in the penis measuring world in which they live. And if YOU, Alfie Englishman, can’t win it for me, with your black’n’white flat cap, then I’ll go and find Johnny Foreigner who wears shell suits in bright colours and won with Athletico Dubrovnik!!!

And now managers who fit the bill, who have a Euro ‘pedigree’ have themselves become stars. Their salaries now match those of the players. But there’s far less of them to go around. There’s only one Jose Morinho. Thank God. And there’s only one Mauricio Pochettino. AND HE’S FUCKING OURS, SO PISS OFF CHELSEA, YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM (even after last night). There’s also only one Rafael Benitez. Sacked by the world’s most unforgiving club, Real Madrid, two months ago for failing to win anything for 3 weeks, he is in line to start work at Newcastle by the weekend, so tis reckoned.

And that is a whole other proposition from ‘how do I maximise Ronaldo and Bale in the same squad for effectiveness? This is more ‘what the fuck can we possibly do with this band of misfiring misfits?’ Rafa will be a very brave man to take that on, I feel. It could affect his own future worth.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

As a liberal, left-leaning pseudo-Tory capitalist-socialist (I think that covers most of it), I struggle to see how the proper ‘left’, those more Marx than Blair, more Livingstone than Lenin, how they view the world. I get some of it. But where I struggle is why they’re always so keen on terrorism.

Jeremy Corbyn is known to be ‘anti-democracy’, itself a rather strange position for any democratically elected, UK leader of a mainstream party. So perhaps he sees anarchy as the most expedient way to achieve ending democracy. Thus he aligns with any group anywhere, regardless of their tactics, who are seen as having ‘ a cause’.

Why else would he have a personal history of fraternising with the (then) IRA? Why the excessive sympathy for ISIS? Hamas are his mates. Hezbollah. Its beyond me.

The other day Labour reinstated party membership to Gerry Downing. He was kicked out of the party last year because he stated that the 9/11 bombers must never be condemned. Nice. But he also shared an article online entitled: “Why Marxists must address the Jewish Question concretely today”.

Well what is the ‘jewish question’? I always thought it to be: ‘why is this night different from all others?’ (Jewish joke) Or, “can I buy that wholesale?” But apparently not.

Apparently there’s a question and it needs not only answering but doing so in a concrete manner. This is from the article: “the Jewish-Zionist bourgeoisie, from Milton Friedman to Henry Kissinger to the pro-Israel ideologues of the War on Terror, have played a vanguard role for the capitalist offensive against the workers.”

And you can’t argue with that. Nor would you want or need to. Its neo-left-wing-bollox-speak which says precisely nothing but does so in really elegant sounding phrases. The mere tone of which is very accusatory.

But the shift has occurred in the hard-left narrative. From: ‘anyone with an anti-establishment cause’ being worthy of support, to now, ‘anyone who blows things up, murders, maims, kills innocents, destroys half of New York, MUST have a cause worthy of our support’. Don’t they? Must do, surely? Well, let’s support them anyway; we can always find something downtrodden, something anti-establishment, something worthy somewhere between their petrol bombs and suicide vests.

Gerry Downing has now been kicked once more from the Labour Party. Twice in one year. He should be my hero for that alone. But he’s not. He’s a rabid motherfucker who makes you almost hope that he gets killed in a terrorist atrocity. Just for the sheer irony.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Gwyneth Paltrow is launching something else. Something new. Something other than the 72,000 things she already produces in the diet, nutrition, fashion and book publishing lines. She’s getting into ‘skincare’. Never one to not maximise her Oscar for Shakespeare in Love in about 1975, she keeps that rollercoaster rolling, consciously coupling with new ideas all the time. Can’t criticise her for her industry.

And an industry it is. This time, her skincare products, marketed under the name ‘GOOP’ (Gwyneth Orlando Oxelaide Paltrow?) will start, for a cleanser, at $90. She’s obviously after the low-end punters. Primark. Tesco. Walmart. And her products are made ‘entirely from natural ingredients’. Wow. That’s impressive. No refined diesel then. No radioactive isotopes. Just ‘natural’.

Well, dead babies are ‘natural’. As is cow-shit. Moss, slime, algae, the smallpox virus, cancer cells, snot, bile and snakes. So I think we need a bit more than ‘natural ingredients’ Gwynnie, to convince us to buy your vile potions and lotions.

The other blonde-of-the-moment is poor Maria Sharapova. As more ‘facts’ emerge. Not like the ones I spoke of yesterday, I made most of those up on the grounds that its easier than waiting for the real ones to emerge.

But whilst we’re waiting for such a time, Maria has lost her contracts with Nike, Tag-Heuer and various others, collectively worth about 200 million quid over 5 years. They’ve abandoned her in her hour of need. And that’s doubly cruel since she has some previously unheard of heart condition that required her to take ‘meds’ designed as a 6-week course, for 10 years continuously. Oh, and one ‘side effect’ of that drug is to give you the stamina of superman, the strength of 10 grunting bimbos and make you play tennis, as the manufacturers claim; ‘like a motherfucker on speed’. They may not have phrased it precisely that way.

One sponsor, rather than abandon the Russian Babe in her hour of need (she’s down to her last 197 million), are just putting things on hold. That’s Porsche. Which is owned by Volkswagen. Itself no stranger to failing tests.

Porsche should actually increase its sponsorship of La Sharapova as together they are the perfect fit. Sleek, fast, high-performance. And cheats.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I haven’t mentioned this before, because its rather shameful, but I have to admit that last December at my tennis club I tested positive for caffeine. We don’t so much have ‘random drug testing’ like they do at Wimbledon, more that in a club with an average age for members of about 79, incontinence is a bit of a problem, so they just test all the discarded shorts. Eeeeuuuuuuwww.

They found traces of numerous banned substances; statins, blood pressure meds, heart pills, memory meds, viagra. And caffeine. Which is a stimulant, increases metabolism, hence can be considered a ‘performance enhancing drug’.

I was immediately ‘stripped’ of my title of ‘winner of the alternate saturday afternoon round-robin doubles tournament’ and asked to return the prize. A bottle of Waitrose slimline Prosecco.

“But I’ve ALWAYS drunk coffee before playing tennis!” I cried in appeal. “The coffee shop is on the way here, and they only banned caffeine last year!!” Then the kicker: “I DIDN’T KNOW!!”

Poor Maria Sharapova. She’s been on ‘meds’ for 10 years, prescribed by her doctor, and they banned it in January. About a week before the Aussie Open, at which she tested positive for the drug, Meldonium. Which sounds like a Roman Empire World Heritage site on Hadrian’s Wall, but its not. Its a drug. For heart stuff. Apparently. That’s why Maria takes it. For her heart. Though she doesn’t really appear to have a heart problem. She takes it because of a ‘magnesium problem’ and a ‘family history of diabetes’. Well if Meldonium was a cure or preventative for diabetes, we’d all be taking it.

She was very sweet and open and teary and honest at the press conference she called yesterday to announce this to the world. Herself and alone for her ‘mea culpa’ moment. And she’s a gorgeous blond thing, which doesn’t hurt when you’re appealing for being a fucking cheat.

Maria is a 20 million dollar a year industry. She’s a phenomenon in sponsorship deals. She has lawyers, advisers, managers, advisers, dieticians, stylists and doctors. She may not have ‘realised’ that they’d banned her drug of choice, but they did.

And she took Meldonium because she’s Russian and that’s what they do. Ten years ago, when she started taking it, she was already a winning professional. She was ‘prescribed’ a then-legal drug because it enhanced performance. the only odd thing is why she’s still taking it now, after they’ve banned it.

If only it had stopped her grunting.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Do you remember when Volkswagen did that whole cheating thing with emissions testing of their diesel cars? Remember? Of course you do, it was only a few months ago. During which time nothing much has happened. Other than Jay Leno demanding someone goes to prison for the offences. He would. He’s American. I’m only surprised he didn’t demand the death penalty.

The level of sophistication of the cheating was so cynical by VW that normally I’d be crying out for dead Germans too. But they were also victim of the world’s obsession with compromising car performance over exhaust emissions. Breaking the cardinal rule that: cars should always be made as fast as you can possibly make them. So the VWs appeared to be emitting pure oxygen lightly scented with Chanel No. 5 during the tests, whereas on the road they churned out more shit than 17 London buses.

Hateful thing to do. Except for all the smugger-than-thou diesel buyers who suddenly found themselves shut out of Green Party meetings, Tree-Hugger Association camps and Vegan Support Groups. They’ll eventually receive compensation for all that emotional distress, but for them the damage is done and they’ll never get to heaven. Or if they do it’ll look like Shanghai with clouds of pollution clogging up their wings.

And now, in an effort to redeem themselves to the world, VW have brought out a new car. A proper one. One that doesn’t pretend to be ‘cleaner’, makes no mention of ’emissions’ whatsoever and comes with a guarantee that if you breathe anywhere near it you will die.

But its fast. Oh, fuck me, is it fast.

The Bugatti Chiron (Bugatti may sound Italian, may have an Italian heritage, but, just like Lamborghini, its now VW through and through) is the car that replaces the Veyron. Which was the first production car to produce 1000 horse power. And was such a remarkable feat of engineering achievement that even though it looked, so some thought, a little ‘normal’, was spectacularly wonderful in every way. So with this new model, they haven’t gone the full ‘Lambo’ and pimped it up like a space rocket, but it does indeed look the bizniss. Which it emphatically is.

This one gives (just) 1,500 horse-power. Is it enough? It goes from 0 to 60 mph before you take the handbrake off, and is ‘limited’ in road use, to just 261mph. I hate limits. You do get a ‘speed key’ for when you need to go faster. Jesus. And all that for a mere 2.3 million quid. What a bargain.

I’m going to trade in my old, sluggish, diesel, rusty VW Mertersacker and buy one tomorrow.

The Premiership got a whole lot more interesting this weekend. Particularly the whole 4th place thing. Man City should still do it, Arsenal probably will. But if either stumble or stutter, despite Man United making every effort at total failure this season, they’re hanging in even with the recent onslaught by West Ham (in Europe?? Whatever next?) and even Liverpool who seem to be cheating their way rather nicely up the table.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Yay though verily didst become
the Season not finished strange and undone
And inst such turmoil, The Arse didst arrive,
at the Lane of Whitest Hart in the hope they mightst thrive.

Though chastened by resultage poor of late,
For this match those Goons indeed could not wait
The chance to level the points, balance the score,
even in semi-disgrace, they rushed through the door.

Yet Tottenham greeted them with fast and furious start
Arsenal bewildered; ‘what’s that all abart???’
Yet against all that is holy, all that is right,
Ramsey scored, he’s not even a knight!

One nil at half time, oh woe and sadness and horrid
But what would ensue was to be truly torrid.
And thus on minute 55, Francis Coquelin saw red
so walked away from the battle, in his hands his head

In shame and disgrace, a sinner forsooth
banished henceforth to the naughty booth.
And such was the power of the Lord
Who’d personally ensured this with word and with sword,

That the Arse were smote, not once, nor thrice,
but in the 2 minutes that followed, indeed t’were twice
First Sir Toby, of Belgium descent
Then Sir Harry hisself, the man Heaven sent

The Spurs 2-1 up, the angels didst sing
what more could this tournament possibly bring?
Yet the battle raged, in tooth and claw
The nobles singing loudly for us to score more

Yet t’wasn’t to be, a tragedy occurred
Sanchez scored for Arse, that dog-eaten turd
Thus the battle ended at the Lane,
A 2 all draw at the end of the game.

Itself not a tragedy in any classic sense
But the Lord was angry at such dissent
Then to cap it, to verily twist the knife,
Leicester won at Watford; such is fucking life.

And so, good people and Arsenal fans too
one measly point is just so much poo
Yet all the while, as I continue to grieve
I look at the table and I STILL BELIEVE.

Happy Sunday

Shakepeare (big Spurs fan)
xxxx

This is everything. This is the season. This is MY FUCKING LIFE!!!!!

All distilled into 90 minutes this lunchtime. Everything else is irrelevant. There is no ISIS. Donald Who?? Euro-bollox; who cares? National Debt?? Global warming?? All meaningless.

I’m off to play tennis now. In the rain but I don’t care. I don’t really care about anything. It all comes down to two halves of football; 12.45 at the Lane. Nothing else matters.

I may return later.

There again, I may not.

Anxious Saturday

A xxxx

There’s been another ‘study’. And we all love one’a them. About gender roles in the home, this time. Oddly its been done by Oxfam. Though why they are spending money due to be sent to starving Africans on worrying about who’s doing the housework over here is beyond me. I don’t give to Oxfam, I don’t like them. So its your money they’re wasting, not mine. But even so…

They found that women spend more time doing housework than men. That’s worth 25 grand of anyone’s donations all by itself. A revelation.

But true gender equality, they feel, can never be reached until men and women spend equal amounts of time cleaning toilets. That’s their benchmark. Or skidmark, as its called in this context.

The fact that men (on average; of those surveyed, blah, blah, blah) spend 3 times as much time as women changing lightbulbs and taking out the rubbish is not viewed as ‘unequal’ in such an equal way.

Everything is based on an assumption. Basically that ‘there is no difference between a man and a woman beyond a penis and a few other bits and pieces; therefore they are the same, other than the extreme influences of cultural demands and expectations’. And that, as we all know, is so much bollocks. Women don’t have those either.

And its precisely this lack of testicles that creates the difference. Men and women ARE different. We should embrace those differences because they’re fun and nice and lead to all sorts of wonderful things.

Perhaps women are just better at cleaning toilets? They should be with all that practice. But maybe its a chromosomal thing? Like men are good at throwing things, parking cars, scratching scrotums (scrota, I know, I fucking know), women are good at washing up, having babies, changing channel during FA Cup matches.

There’s a workplace in London that is to give women ‘period leave’. When they feel pained and grumpy at ‘their time of the month’ they take a few days off. Presumably paid, not counted as sick leave or holiday. Just a couple days a month. 25 days a year? Well that’s equality. To balance this I should be able to take a couple of days off after Spurs lose a game and my hormones are all off balance. Its only fair.

Ok, I’m going out to wash my wife’s car. Or maybe I should give her the opportunity to redress that little imbalance too???

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Its a funny ole game. Thus spake Jimmy Greaves. Football! Phah!!

And what about pressure? That’s a funny ole thing too. And we went to West Ham with lofty aspirations and dreams of untold wonderness and we fucking blew it. Having beaten a host of teams that no-one expected us to, we played a game we should have won and failed to even turn up in any significant way.

That normally would have made me want to hit someone. As many someones as I could find. Which would have been Mel really as we were at home nursing her cold when the tragic news arrived. I could have gone out and hit someone else. Murdered a cat. Punched a brick wall.

But I didn’t. I resisted. I controlled myself. I was calm.

And I’d love to say its because of a new-found maturity, or spirituality, some yoga maybe, getting in touch with my yin and yang and moderating my psyche. But I’d be lying. The only reason I was ok was that Arsenal lost too. God bless Swansea. Especially that player who wrestled Mezut Ozil to the ground with two hands round his neck and a knife in his back, which was not given as a foul by the ref and the Swans subsequently scored as the Arsenal players stood around waiting for a free kick. Arsene Wenger’s training session today should start with the words: PLAY TO THE FUCKING WHISTLE!!!!

They didn’t. And Wenger of course blamed the referee for the team’s loss. Boring boring Arsene. Plus ca change. As they say in Upton Park.

A massed, collective sigh, emanating from the greater Leicester area could be heard a hundred miles away as it crept down the M1 to my house.

So now we await Saturday and see which teams turn up.

Adam Johnson’s going darn. Prison time for the sex offender. What a tosser of immense proportions.

And Julie Vangenberg is understandably pissed off at being constantly referred to as a ‘WAG’, as being Nicklas Bendtner’s girlfriend. She’s an actress. She has her own career. Doesn’t need to be associated with the self-proclaimed ‘best striker in the world’ even though when he proclaimed that, my late mother had scored more goals than he had. Instead, Bendtner should be referred to as the boyfriend of a lesbian vampire (her latest role). I love a worthless Dane.

Happy sodding Thursday

A xxxx

Politics is different over here. We really have no-one quite like Donald Trump. Well, thinking about it, there is no-one else anywhere quite like the Trumpster.

We have loud, screechy billionaire property magnates, we call them Alan Sugar. We have racists and bigots, we call them UKIP, or sometimes just ‘Wayne’. We have circus entertainers, clowns, comedians, but ours are actually funny. We have people with orange faces, OK, they’re normally women and married to footballers, or accompanying them to court for sex charges of some sort, but we have the odd orange man too. We have men with extravagant comb-overs, we call them ‘child-molesters’.

But we wouldn’t vote for any of the above. Never.

And yet America is falling over itself to put an insane and dangerous racist, misogynist xenophobe one big step closer to the White House.

“AAAAAHHMM GONNA MAKE AMEEEEEEERICCCCA GREAT AGAIN!!!!” he screeches at the caucuses. “WE’RE ALL GONNA BE SUCH WINNERS YOU’RE GONNA ATCHERLEY ASK ME TO LOSE A BIT… AND I’LL SAY NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” He atcherley said that.

Tosser. As are all those who actually buy into such unsubstantiated drivel.

Though as if taking total control of the middle-American bible-belters isn’t sufficient for our Don, he also received an endorsement from David Duke. Former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The ‘moderate right’ (or ‘moderate white’) and now the extreme. Trump refused to comment or reject the endorsement. Well, heh, a vote’s a vote, even when its from neo-nazi, right???

But Trump is the duck off whose back such things just slide off. Donald Duck. He is teflon man. And Americans are seemingly buying into his meaningless nonsense taken straight from some handbook on motivational speaking. All vim and vigour and no meaning or content.

“Shit!!!” thinks Bill Clinton, Barak Obama, George W Bush, Ronald Regan, George Washington, George (no ‘W’) Bush et al, “I never thought of making America great; how stupid am I? Missed opportunity there. Oh well…”

So instead of worrying about a megalomaniacal lunatic possibly becoming president of the world’s most powerful nation, I shall focus my attention on Upton Park. The Boleyn Ground. Tonight. 7.45. West Ham play Spurs. The biggest match EVERRRRRRRR. They all are now. I’m saying nothing. I’m too scared.

Happy MAKING BRITAIN GREAT day

A xxxx